by Cari Hislop
“Lady Morley says you’re unworthy of the years her son wasted on you. She says she counselled him when he was young not to bother with a deaf brute, but he insisted on being kind.”
“Is that a joke Madam? Your son is a heartless lying cur and if he puts his hand down my wife’s bodice again I’ll kill him…” Marshall glanced past Mary’s lowered head to the nonchalant figure near the fire. “…slowly. If I hang for it I’ll die knowing my wife is safe from your vile son.”
Lady Morley flew at Marshall and clawed at his eyes, “Touch my son and they’ll never find your body you great ugly beast.”
Marshall easily captured her claws and pressed them to the table as he leaned in to her snarling fury, “Your son would thank you for saving him the bother, but I doubt he’d thank you for depriving him of the pleasure.”
Henry Fitzalan appeared at Marshall’s side and hissed into his ear, “Will you now have the footman bring a pair of manacles into the drawing room to chain my mother to her chair? Are you a man of reason or a savage beast?”
The old woman was freed as Marshall jumped up out of his chair and smashed his fist into her son’s face. Grabbing Henry’s coat, Marshall slammed his old friend’s head onto the card table where his aristocratic nose was outlined against the Queen of Hearts. The Marquis of Morley gave no resistance as he stared over the table top, smirking at Mary’s horrified expression. “Is this the first time you’ve seen your husband lose his temper? You should be afraid Madam, one day it’ll be your…” The Marquis of Morley was suddenly choking as strong hands squeezed his throat.
“You lying devil…don’t speak another word to my wife.”
“Unhand my son!” Marshall grunted in pain as Lady Morley viciously jabbed him repeatedly in the ribs with the handle of her lorgnette. Marshall released his grip and snatched the lorgnette out of her hands and threw it across the room. Turning back he found Henry calmly retying his cravat as he held Mary’s frightened gaze with an amused leer. “What did he say? Tell me!” Pale with fear, Mary opened her mouth, as Henry raised a single eye brow and then pursed her lips into a thin line.
Morley brushed invisible lint off his coat, “If you’ve finished mauling my mother and demonstrating your murderous strength for the household pray excuse me. I’m in need of some air.” Marshall clenched his fists and silently raged at having fallen into one of Henry’s traps. He’d made himself look like a mindless brute and Henry an innocent victim. Marshall watched Henry turn to his mother and offer his arm, but he couldn’t hear or see the man’s lips say, “I insist on escorting you to a calm safe environment. When Marshall’s in a temper he spares no one.” The words sank into the ears of the silent servants hovering at the edge of the room as they eyed Marshall with fear. Lady Morley took her son’s arm and eyed Marshall and Mary with hatred before lifting her chin and silently snubbing them as she turned away and left the room with her son.
Marshall glared at his Aunt Beatrice who stared up at him like a cornered rabbit. He leaned across the table and whispered through clenched teeth, “Knowing how much you enjoy helping your favourite niece, I expect you to be the one to nurse Alyce through all three stages of syphilis. Watching her beauty fade as she loses her health will be punishment enough for your mindless interference.” The old woman was deathly still until Marshall slapped the table with his hand, “Get out of my sight!” She erupted from her chair and ran sobbing from the room. He felt a cold iron flatten his heart as he finally noticed Mary cringing behind her hands. Expelling his blood lust with a forced sigh he pulled out Mary’s chair and scooped her into his arms and walked from the room without acknowledging the curious stares from the other two tables.
He kicked his bedchamber door shut behind them and collapsed in a chair holding his wife. She was still hiding behind her hands. “Did Henry put his hand down your bodice?” Her head nodded refilling him with blood lust. “I’ll kill him! Why didn’t you tell me? Well?”
Mary spoke into the offered ear from behind her hands, “What would have been the point? You didn’t believe me when I told you he nearly ravished me. Why would you believe that he’d violated my person?”
Marshall’s flattened heart pumped pain through his limbs. “I would have believed you if you’d told me he put his hand down your bodice. Did he hurt you?”
“He grabbed my right breast; of course it hurts!”
“That bastard…do you hate me for being a gullible idiot?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“But you think me an idiot?” Marshall blinked in pain at her silence. “Why are you angry with me? I believe you now. Merry?” She cringed away from his caress and burst into tears. “What is the matter? Tell me.” He waited with his ear near her lips for several long minutes hoping to hear something that might dissipate his fear of losing her, but her lips remained closed. Feeling rejected, he lost his temper and shouted, “I can’t read your mind; tell me, that’s an order.”
“You humiliated me…” Her hands slid off her face revealing wet angry eyes that glared at him. He was a failure. He’d failed to protect the woman he loved and she hated him. Fear stabbed his heart as she screamed, “You shouted my shame to the entire household. How was that not humiliating?”
“I didn’t! I’d never humiliate you.” His wife turned away from the loud angry words and recovered her face. Marshall had the unnerving sensation that he was somehow deeply in the wrong as he fingered her silk skirts draping his knee. He took a deep calming breath and whispered with contrition, “I didn’t mean to humiliate you Merry; everyone should know that man’s a devil. Come closer. Let me hold you…”
“You don’t care about my feelings.”
“How can you say that? I swear I didn’t mean to humiliate you. Merry please…” Marshall grunted in pain as she pushed free of his arms and ran for the open connecting door. He jumped to his feet and followed, “Merry Heart, don’t be angry with me I love…” Marshall winced as the connecting door slammed closed cutting off his impulsive declaration. “Merry!” Marshall bruised the door with his knuckle. “You’re supposed to explain why you’re unhappy not slam doors in my face. I don’t want you moping at my shoulder thinking ill thoughts of me from dusk to dawn; come back here and explain yourself!” He pressed his cheek to the door and waited. After twenty endless minutes his heart thumped in fear as he slowly opened the door and leaned into the room. She was lying face down on the bed. “Merry?” She appeared to press her face deeper into the coverlet. “Merry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The figure on the bed suddenly twisted around revealing angry eyes filled with tears. Marshall shuddered with horror as her lips formed the commanded to go away. He clenched his fists and shouted back, “If you want me to go you could have the courtesy to say the words in my ear so I could hear them; that is what I hired you to do!” She merely returned her face to the bed and ignored him. The pain of rejection blazed into rage as his unwanted heart threatened to burst, “As I’m incapable of protecting you, you’d best lock both doors and pray Henry hasn’t stolen a key.” Slamming the door shut, he muttered curses at his heart. He was a stupid fool for thinking he could ever be loved. The morning’s sweet elation had been quashed by her angry command. If she wanted him to go, he’d go. Stepping out into the corridor he ignored his heart’s order that he stay and protect his beloved. There were only two things that could ease the pain; Mary’s kisses or killing the Marquis of Morley. He paused at his wife’s door and checked the handle. It was locked. There was no hope of kisses; he’d have to make due with pummelling Henry.
Chapter 18
Looking up from her cards Alyce found herself the main object of interest in the red drawing room. The unasked question hung in the air until Cecil Smirke draped himself over the back of her chair, “Are we collectively hearing voices or have you illegally married that aging syphilitic Pan?” Alyce glanced around her table; her sister was obviously hurt and horrified, Buckingham looked disturbed while Charles Smirke appeared bored. Glancing at Ro
bert Smirke she felt her throat constrict as she met a look of disgust. The young man stood up and threw down his cards with force before stalking from the room with clenched fists. Cecil watched his baby brother leave the room before turning his attention back to Alyce, “Robert’s young he’ll get over you. Pretty shameless women can be found everywhere; we have at least a dozen in Adderbury. I’d wager Robert has intimate knowledge of each lady’s faults. What I’d like to know is how you can stomach the thought, let alone the act, of bedding Morley? He looks like one of those Egyptian mummies plastered and painted to look alive…” Ignoring Cecil’s questions, Alyce jumped from her chair and hurried after Robert’s fading footsteps. “…I hope Robert isn’t stupid enough to bed Morley’s bride.”
Buckingham ogled Cecil with an intense stare, “There is a lady present.”
“Oh…yes, forgive me Lady Emily, I’m sure your sister wouldn’t cuckold a murderous mummy. Cosmo, go remind Robert that temptations are meant to be resisted.”
Emily burst into tears, “Oh Bucky…she never said a word! How could she not tell me?”
Cosmo ignored the sobbing woman being comforted in their hosts’ arms, “You’re the eldest, you do it…fed up…one of these days…Papa…” The conversation behind her slurred as Alyce stepped through the door and ran after the slender back disappearing around a corner.
“Robert wait!” He didn’t resist the hand on his sleeve as she pulled him to a stop. “Don’t be angry with me. You’re only seventeen. I couldn’t wait four years to marry you. I don’t want to be an old maid-bride; in any case you probably wouldn’t want me in four years.”
“If you make love to all your admirers, it’s just as well I didn’t make your list of ennobled cuckolds. As for marriage, my wife will lovingly resist my charms until I put a ring on her finger. I don’t want some light skirt mothering my children.”
“I’m not a Jezebel. I kissed you before I married Morley. Besides, I don’t want to marry you so what difference does it make?”
“Forgive my bluntness Madam, but being Morley’s property makes you a dangerous toy. You’re not worth dying for.”
“Don’t be so dull! Morley’s a pig…” She looked about her before opening the nearest door and pulling him into a bedchamber shrouded in dust covers and quietly closed the door. “…he intends to cast me off and pretend he didn’t marry me. He says if I don’t do what he wants he’ll publish my ruin. We haven’t been married twenty-four hours and he’s forced his revolting nakedness on me five times.”
“I’m impressed; I wouldn’t have thought the old goat had it in him.”
“It’s not funny; the pig intends to make Mary his Marchioness.”
“Mary? Your unattractive sister-in-law? I fear Bedlam awaits you.”
“It’s true! Henry intends to murder Marshall and force Mary into wedlock. Heaven knows why he wants her. He said I was stupid and I wouldn’t understand.”
“I think you’re stupid for thinking he’d marry you with an illegal license.”
“Perhaps, but I’m not so stupid to let him get away with it. I’m going to be publicly acknowledged as the widowed Lady Morley. I just need to be pregnant with an heir so I don’t have to go home with Marshall…”
“Whoa! Widowed? You, are going to kill Morley? How? Bed him to death?”
Alyce slapped the laughing young man on the arm. “If Morley dies in an accident no one will know the difference. All his brothers died in accidents, why shouldn’t he?”
“If you have any sense you’ll pretend the wedding never happened and flee to some haven until your next curse confirms you won’t be cursed with his bastard.”
“If he dies and I have a child it won’t be a bastard, it’ll be a Fitzalan. Morley hates Smirkes. Wouldn’t it be amusing if his legal heir was a Smirke?”
Robert’s raised eyebrow silently questioned her sanity. “You underestimate your aging Pan. The man has been known to kill people because he finds it amusing.”
“I need a son and widow weeds in that order. Will you help me?”
“My father wouldn’t approve.”
“Who cares what your father thinks? How would he know? The child might not even look like you.”
“It could look like Morley.”
“Obviously, but I’d rather it looked like a Smirke. Well?”
“I can tell your brother hasn’t yet taken you to Bedlam to gawp at inmates with the pox.”
“You won’t get the pox.”
“No because I use preservatives against the clap unless I’m certain the young lady is a virgin, a state of being you can no longer claim. However, if you merely wish to be pleasured I might oblige wearing an impediment to procreation.”
“I don’t need a lover, I need a child. Would one of your brothers help me?”
“They wouldn’t know what to do if they found you naked.”
“Then you have to help me.” Alyce fingered one of the buttons on his waistcoat and looked up through her lashes with what she hoped was a needy expression. “I don’t want to kiss one of your brothers; you’re by far the most beautiful Smirke…”
He glanced at her low décolletage and licked his lips, “I’ll think about it.”
“You will? Let’s do it now.”
“No, one of my brothers will be looking for me.”
“Shall we have a practice kiss…?” Five minutes later, still unable to persuade Robert to join her on the bed, Alyce pulled free and tidied her dress. Her lecherous husband would be waiting for her in the conservatory. “Meet me tomorrow at the Chinese pagoda folly at noon; I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll have a picnic lunch and then you can give me a Smirke.”
“Even if I escape his eagle eyes, Cecil’s bound to come looking for me.”
“How could he possibly think to find you in a folly half hidden on the hillside out of sight of the house?”
“I’ve no idea, but he might. He’s a cursed nuisance.”
“The impertinent bore won’t find us…did you hear what he asked me? I’ve never been so insulted; I could have poked out his eyes.”
“He fell on his head as a child. It did something to his brain. He can only speak the truth; unfortunately for you he’s usually correct.”
“I can’t imagine he has much luck with the ladies.”
“He wants to be like Papa and save himself for love.”
“Your Papa sounds like a bore.”
“Only when he’s giving one of his eternal lectures on being good; being good is a bore. I tried it for three months and nearly died of frustration until a pretty maid offered sweet relief.”
“He sounds like my boring brother…” Alyce jumped as someone tapped firmly on the door. “Who’s that?”
“Probably Cecil…your bodice is loose, here let me.” Alyce blushed as she was expertly tucked and tied back into place by long slender admiring fingers.
The knocking became urgent, “Robert, I know you’re in there.”
Robert pulled the door open and scowled down at his eldest sibling, “Do you mind? I was having a private conversation.”
Alyce blushed as Cecil looked her up and down with blank expression that somehow conveyed disproval, “By the look of her dress she’s had a little too much conversation. You have just enough time to do a Mathematics lesson before dinner. After which we’ll all go hunting some of those mushrooms you spotted, unless I end up defending you from the lady’s mad husband.”
Alyce sneered at the pretty blonde man waving her out of the room with an elegant hand. “If you were as much a man as your seventeen year old brother, you might convince a woman to have a private conversation with you.”
“If my baby brother had half my wisdom Madam he’d avoid you like the plague. Morley is a murderer. Don’t be surprised when he kills you. I won’t be.”